Capital and Capitol: Which One to Use Where

What a pair these are: they sound identical and look nearly identical and both have meanings that relate to government. Mastering their use, however, is simple.

The key is this: capitol, the one with an "o," is very limited in use. It appears in the term Capitol Hill, and is used to refer to one very particular and famous building, to some other similar buildings, and, occasionally, to a group of buildings that includes those similar buildings. For all other meanings, the word you want is capital.

This means that in a state's capital city is a building or group of buildings properly referred to with the word capitol, with an "o." In this use capitol is synonymous with statehouse: both refer to the building or group of buildings where a state legislature meets. The phrase capital city utilizes capital because it refers to a city, not to a building or group of buildings.

Capitol with a capital "C" refers to the particular building in Washington, D.C. where the U.S. Congress meets. It often appears before other nouns in phrases like the Capitol building and Capitol police, and is very frequently used in the term Capitol Hill, which refers both to the legislative branch of the United States government as well as to the location of the Capitol building. The Capitol, like many state capitol buildings, has a rounded dome that is somewhat reminiscent of the top of an "o," which may help some remember the "o" spelling. Note that the word capital as used to describe an uppercase letter, like in the phrase capital "C", utilizes capital.

The word capital has three distinct homographs, two for noun uses and one for adjective uses. Readers should consult those entries for the various meanings of capital, but can be assured that they all end in al, rather than ol.

Examples of capital in a Sentence

Adjective

In several district capital towns I visited, the most obvious result of increased local autonomy was a showy new government office complex …— Mel White, National Geographic, November 2008In a nearby deli, the specials board announces in desperately bold capital letters, "WILL TRADE FOOD FOR SOX/PATS TICKETS"!— Julia Glass, Gourmet, February 2007Few competent local lawyers are willing to take on capital defendants for $20 an hour …— Jeffrey Rosen, New Republic, 4 Oct. 1993
His handwritten capital S's look a lot like lowercase s's.
Homicide that occurs during the course of an attempted kidnapping is a capital crime in some states.

Noun (1)

… he must have poured a lot of energy into observing the men and women around him, since they would provide the literary capital he would draw on for many years to come in three major books.— Edmund White, New York Review of Books, 12 Feb. 2009Myrtle Beach claims to be the nation's golf capital, and given its 123 golf courses, it is hard to dispute the title.— Elizabeth Olson, New York Times, 30 Sept. 2003The two brothers-in-law pooled their resources and scrounged capital from relatives. Thorne asked several family members, including his father, to back them, but only his uncle, Samuel Thorne, came through with the money.— Jennet Conant, Tuxedo Park, 2002Anna is no bumpkin: she and her sisters have been dragged thriftily around the capitals of Europe by their parents, a pair of academics who have always displayed the proper American reverence for garlic and old stones, and occasionally even sprung for a fancy meal.— Andrea Lee, New Yorker, 6 May 2002This was the incident book, and there, sure enough, was the entry detailing Moretsi's injury, the words spelled out in capitals in a barely literate hand …— Alexander McCall Smith, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, 1998In a sense, such stories are his capital, and if he's lucky he may be able to parlay them into a business opportunity …— Bill Barich, New Yorker, 7 May 1990

Noun (2)

The transition from Greece to Rome is marked, in a propylaeum space, by a huge Ionic column's base and capital, with a space between the broad part of the column below and the narrowing segment above.— Garry Wills, New York Review of Books, 31 May 2007According to the scrapbooks of nineteenth-century tourists, there's room for a hundred men to stand on the capital of one of these columns. That was the kind of culturally insensitive thing tourists used to do.— P. J. O'Rourke, Atlantic, September 2002

The first known use of capital was
in the 13th century

Financial Definition of capital

Let's say Company XYZ has $1 million of cash, a widget-making machine and a fleet of delivery vehicles. These items generate income: The cash earns interest, the widget-making machine makes widgets that have a 10% profit margin, and the delivery vehicles support the operation.

In the economic sense, capital comes in many forms: currency, equipment, land or even people.

Why It Matters

Capital makes the business world go 'round because it reflects and determines what is bought and sold in an economy. In the economics world, centuries of debate have existed over who should control a nation's capital, who is oppressed by those who have more capital than others, and how capital should be distributed.

: capital that is raised by borrowing (as by issuing bonds or securing loans)

—equity capital

: capital (as retained earnings) that is free of debtespecially: paid-in capital in this entry

—fixed capital

: capital that is invested on a long-term basisespecially: capital that is invested in fixed assets

—legal capital

: stated capital in this entry

—moneyed capital

: capital that consists of or represents money that is used or invested (as by a bank or investment company) for the purpose of making a profit on it as money — see also moneyed corporation at corporation

—paid-in capital

: equity capital that is received in exchange for an interest (as shares of stock) in the ownership of a business

—risk capital

: venture capital in this entry

—stated capital

: the total par value or stated value of no par issues of outstanding capital stock

—called alsolegal capital

—venture capital

: the initial usually paid-in capital of a new enterprise involving risk but offering potential above-average profits